Last weekend, Vineyard Speyer in Germany hosted a conference of 300 to 400 people, with guests from Romania, Moldova, Albania, Iran, France, Latvia and more. Every guest followed in their mother language, on their own phone. This is the weekend in the host's own words.
Last weekend ended on a Sunday in Speyer, in a church building full of people from many nations.
Vineyard Speyer is a church in Speyer, in the south west of Germany. At the beginning of October it hosted a conference in its own building. The speakers on stage spoke German and English, and the guests came from far beyond Germany. Detlef Schmidtke from Vineyard Speyer wrote to us afterwards, and he gave us permission to share what he wrote. Almost everything in this post is his.
We had a great conference with between 300 and 400 participants, with several speakers on stage in German and English (New Zealand) and guests from various nations like Romania, Moldova, Albania, Iran/Persia, France, Latvia and more. Everyone was very excited to have this opportunity to follow the talks in their mother-language.
Anyone who has organised a Christian conference with international guests knows the arithmetic. An interpreter for one language can be found. An interpreter for two is harder. A team for Romanian, Albanian, Persian, French and Latvian, at every session, from Friday evening to Sunday, does not exist for a church of ordinary size.
So most conferences choose one language for the stage and one for translation, usually English, and the guest who speaks neither does their best. They catch the stories, they miss the points, and they go home having been present at something they could not fully follow.
Vineyard Speyer did it differently. Each guest chose their own language, on their own phone.
Detlef set up MulingStream himself in the days before the conference, with the church's own sound. His summary, which we have kept because it is so short:
"In general: the setup is quick, easy and straight forward!"
That matters more than it sounds. A conference team in the last days before the guests arrive has a hundred things to do, and the translation cannot be one more thing that needs a specialist. It has to be something the person who already runs the sound can switch on.
The guests needed even less. They scanned the code on the screen, picked their language and followed the talks. "Everyone was very happy about the intuitive use of the online app …", Detlef wrote. When a guest arrived after the code had left the screen, the church simply sent them a link: "I also used the 'Invite' function several times … very helpful feature when the QR-code is not at hand …"
This is the part of his letter we have read most often. German speakers, like every speaker, use idioms that make no sense once translated word for word. Smart Hints put a one line explanation under the sentence, in the guest's own language, while the speaker carries on.
Especially exciting: the 'smart hints'! We had speakers who used many typical German idioms which can not be easily translated. So those hints were very helpful, and our foreign listeners felt much more part of the community when funny idioms made the German laugh …
"Felt much more part of the community." That is what a conference is for: not only hearing the talks, but being in the room with everyone else when it laughs.
The same thing happened with Scripture. Speakers do not always give a reference; they say "the Bible says" and quote half a verse from memory. Detlef again: "Also surprisingly good: one of the teachers frequently used 'the bible says …' and then citing parts of a verse and MulingAI [MulingStream] immediately found usually correct the referring quote (psalm, letter, …)". The guest saw the verse, from a Bible translation in their own language.
German preachers are famous for one more thing, and Detlef named it himself. Some guests noticed that the translation comes a moment after the sentence. He explained why, and they agreed:
"In German preaching and talks (…) we love to create long and complex sentences, and we often have crucial keywords pretty much at the end of a paragraph. So the 'context based' concept is very useful and helps to improve the quality a lot."
He is right about German, and right about why we wait. Smart Translation translates what the speaker means, in context, and in German the meaning often arrives with the last word of the sentence.
A conference weekend is a church at full stretch: several sessions a day, breakouts, a Sunday service at the end. MulingStream church passes cover that shape too. A Conference Week runs from the morning session to the late evening, across several days, with every guest choosing their own language. You can see every pass on the pricing page for churches, and more about conferences on the conferences page.
The languages Detlef listed, Romanian, Albanian, Persian, French and Latvian, are among the 200+ languages a guest can choose. The full list is on the languages page.
More from Vineyard Speyer, from guests and from the people who ran it, is on our stories page.
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